


alligators in the garden

by sky_somedays



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Domestic, First Kiss, Found Family, Introspection, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_somedays/pseuds/sky_somedays
Summary: Jesse knows what a family is.





	alligators in the garden

**Author's Note:**

> still processing s1 of The OA and i had some serious jesse feelings.
> 
> title from Sleeping Lions by Kyau & Albert.

It starts when Jesse sees Alfonso putting his pudding cup in his backpack at lunch.

They’re sitting at different tables again. Everything is normal on the surface, but underneath the current has changed directions, and Jesse can’t stop thinking about that. He dreams of rivers and creeks and waterfalls and frozen lakes under the cold winter sun. So it’s not  _weird_  when he bumps Alfonso’s shoulder as he passes with his lunch tray. “You want mine?” he asks, and he drops his pudding cup into the bag without waiting for an answer. 

Alfonso looks up at him. “Thanks.”

Jesse nods and joins his friends. He can feel Alfonso’s eyes on him as he leaves the cafeteria and it’s warm, warm, warm.

Alfonso catches up with him after last period, carrying his lacrosse stick in one hand. They sometimes walk home together, all four of them – five, now, with Angie. But today it’s just the them. “Buck’s got choir practice,” Alfonso says like he can read Jesse’s mind. “I think Steve and Angie are going to her place.”

“Sure,” Jesse says, and they walk the rest of the way in silence. Alfonso’s place is closest and they pause for a moment in front of it. Jesse nods. “See you tomorrow.” 

“Wanna come in?”

“Sure,” Jesse says again, because he does.

Inside the kids are fighting over the TV remote. Alfonso mediates the argument while Jesse hangs his coat up. “Keep your shoes on,” Alfonso says when Jesse is about to kick them off. “The floor’s pretty gross.”

They make spaghetti for the kids and afterwards, sated and sprawled in front of a SpongeBob marathon, Alfonso hands them each a pudding cup.

“I should go,” Jesse says after he helps Alfonso with the dishes. “My sister’s expecting me home.” 

Alfonso walks him to the door. They almost hug, but they don’t because Jesse can tell Alfonso’s not a hugger. Jesse does touch Alfonso’s elbow. It’s not really anything but Alfonso stiffens against it – no;  _into_  it, Jesse thinks, and he leaves before it can become anything more than what it is. 

Jesse dreams of glaciers that night. The next day Alfonso smiles at him in the hall before first period and Jesse, still a little stoned from his morning bong hit, smiles back wide and toothy.

They walk home again together. Jesse makes dinner this time, hamburger helper, while Alfonso does calculus homework on the kitchen island. Occasionally he pauses and watches Jesse open cupboards and search for bowls and throw expired food in the garbage. He ends up cleaning out the fridge while the hamburger helper simmers on the stove. He would always clean the fridge when his mom was having a depressive episode, he remembers; no matter how buried she was she would always tell him he did a good job.

“Thanks,” Alfonso says, walking Jesse to the door again. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s whatever.” Jesse shrugs. “I know what a family is.” Alfonso wasn’t there at the rehab with Betty and Steve, didn’t hear that conversation, but it doesn’t matter. Jesse knows that there is an Alfonso out there somewhere that did.

Alfonso takes a breath, and it shudders through him. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one holding everything together,” he says. “Like if I stop or slow down everything will spin out of control.”

“I know,” Jesse says. “But you’re not the only one holding everything together.”

Alfonso closes his eyes like he’s committing Jesse’s words to memory. “Say that again?”

Jesse does. He repeats it, then repeats it again, and this time when he touches Alfonso’s elbow Alfonso doesn’t stiffen.

Jesse has dinner at Alfonso’s most nights after that. He starts bringing ingredients from home and leaving them there. Jesse likes cooking; he likes food, likes eating, likes putting a plate in front of someone and watching their face transform from it. He always makes extra and puts it in tupperware containers in the freezer. Alfonso takes a plate up for his mom, and Jesse tries to have dessert waiting for him when he returns. He brings those from home – just junk food from their munchies stash. But Alfonso relaxes when Jesse puts a bag of M&Ms or Skittles in his hand anyway. Jesse brings some for the kids, too, but he asks Alfonso before he gives it to them; he knows what a family is.

“You can crash here,” Alfonso offers one night, a few weeks later. It’s later than Jesse normally leaves. He had to wait for the crock pot stew to cool before he could pack away the leftovers, and then he and Alfonso had hung out on the front step after the kids were in bed, passing a joint that Jesse had brought back and forth. “If you want. You can have the couch.”

Jesse wants to stay. He watches smoke curl away from them, absorbed by the darkness. There’s the suggestion of movement there that Jesse has only noticed recently.  “I should go home. My sister.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Alfonso’s voice is distant.

“French,” Jesse says, just to watch the way Alfonso turns to look at him. “Hey.” He smiles.

“Hey?" 

“Next time.”

And Alfonso smiles back, wide and toothy. “Next time.” He hands Jesse the joint and they stand, rubbing some warmth into their arms. This time they do hug, perched on the step, breath hanging in the air. It’s the first time they have hugged properly like this but it doesn’t feel like it.

“I might crash at a friend’s place tomorrow,” Jesse tells Ali when he gets home later with a tupperware of chicken stew. It’s still hot, so he had dished some up for her, trades it for the bong. “Just a heads up.”

“A  _friend_?” She raises her eyebrows. “Make sure you use protection.”

“It’s not  _like that_ ,” Jesse says, and he takes a hit as she takes a bite of stew.

“This is fucking good,” she says. “Is this mom’s recipe?”

“Yeah. I found it a while ago.”

She’s quiet for a while, eating. Jesse watches her. She used to remind him of their mom but she doesn’t anymore, and he thinks that’s a good thing.

“Your friend could come here,” she says after a while. “Whatever you guys want.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “Maybe sometime. I’d like that.”

He packs a change of clothes and his toothbrush along with the ingredients the next day, walks around with it heavy against his shoulder blades like a reminder. When Alfonso finds him after school he eyes the backpack. “What did you bring?”

“Just food and clothes.” Jesse hitches his bag up, trying to avoid the ache in his back from the extra weight.

“Let’s trade,” Alfonso says. “I don’t have my lacrosse stuff with me today.” He’s comfortable when he touches Jesse now, and he’s already sliding the bag off his shoulders.

Jesse makes lasagna roll-ups and the kids love it. Alfonso finishes Jesse’s English assignment for him while he does the dishes and swiffers the floor, and they both put the kids to bed, because Jesse remembers how his parents would tag-team him and Ali when they were young. When it’s late enough that Alfonso is yawning, Jesse says, “Wanna sleep?”

Alfonso nods. “Yeah. I’ll get blankets for you.”

“No, it’s okay. You’ve got a double bed.”

Jesse had expected some kind of reaction, but there isn’t one. Just a shrug. “Yeah, that works.”

Alfonso lends him extra sweats and a t-shirt, and they get changed in the semi-darkness of his bedroom. The darkness has never bothered Jesse, and it doesn’t now, but it’s  _different_. Darkness reminds him of everything that has happened. It’s full of things for him now, where before he enjoyed the emptiness of it. 

“Which side do you want?” Alfonso asks, his voice quiet. His bed is pushed into the corner of the room.

“It’s your bed. You choose, I don’t care.” 

“I’ll take the outside. In case the boys need me.

Jesse smooths a hand over the faded gym shirt he’s wearing. It smells like unfamiliar detergent and Alfonso. “You can have the wall, it’s cool. If you need to get up just wake me.”

Alfonso’s shoulders relax slightly and he nods. He climbs under the covers and makes space, and Jesse joins him, clicking off the dim bedside lamp. Their breathing gives the darkness a movement that Jesse is beginning to find familiar. They are touching at the edges, elbows and heels, and Alfonso doesn’t try to put any space between them.

“This is,” Alfonso whispers, and he pauses, like he’s trying to figure out what he means. Jesse is happy to wait. “Um. It’s nice.”

“Not sleeping alone?”

“Yeah. And, um. Sharing a bed. Remember what OA said? About how she and Homer shared a bed, but couldn’t touch?” Alfonso shifts, pushing their arms together. “I think about that all the time.”

Jesse turns his head, finds Alfonso already looking at him. He’s still wearing his glasses. Jesse raises a hand, slowly, eases them down the bridge of Alfonso’s nose, folds the arms and puts them on the side table. Alfonso’s focus doesn’t change. “I remember,” Jesse says.

“I like this.” Alfonso taps the wall with his knuckles of one hand, taps Jesse’s shoulder with the other. “This space.”

“Me too.” 

Alfonso turns onto his side to face Jesse, breaking their points of contact, and Jesse mirrors him without thinking. There’s enough light from the window that they can see each other a little. Alfonso reaches out and grips the collar of Jesse’s shirt with two fingers. “It feels safe, you know?”

“I know,” Jesse says, pushes closer so that they’re knocking knees and noses. The darkness shivers around them as Alfonso nudges forward with moonlight-heavy eyes.

When they kiss, it doesn’t feel like the first time. Alfonso’s hand drifts up to Jesse’s face and it feels familiar, the way he tucks one finger behind Jesse’s ear and rests his thumb on the corner of Jesse’s eye. There’s something happening in Jesse’s chest and it makes his breath short. He winds the fabric of Alfonso’s shirt around his hand and they slide together like beads on a chain.

Alfonso pulls away, just enough for him to study Jesse’s face. Jesse bites his lip and lets him look. Looks back. His voice is hoarse when he whispers: “I’m glad you invited me in. That day after school.”

Alfonso’s mouth twitches in a smile. “What does this mean?” he asks, and he’s still touching Jesse’s face with careful fingers.

Jesse doesn’t know. He thinks about the river from his dream the night before, the way that darkness undulates when he shares space with Alfonso. He leans into Alfonso’s hand. When he offers an answer, it’s to a different question. “We jumped.”


End file.
